Aereo, a startup that claims it can legally stream video from local TV stations in New York City to residents via the Internet, has been sued by a collection of TV networks.

Twentieth Century Fox, Fox Television, Univision, PBS, and two local New York TV stations filed suit against Aereo in a New York district court, charging the startup with copyright violations due to unauthorized rebroadcast and reproductions, as well as unfair competition.

A second suit was filed later in the day against Aereo, by ABC, Disney, CBS, NBCUniversal, Universal Network Television, and Telemundo, charging Aereo with one count of copyright infringement.
The suits were filed before Aereo's service begins operating on March 14. Both seek a permanent injunction preventing Aereo from operating, plus damages.

Aereo denied the claims. "Aereo does not believe that the broadcasters' position has any merit and it very much looks forward to a full and fair airing of the issues," the company said in a statement.

"Consumers are legally entitled to access broadcast television via an antenna and they are entitled to record television content for their personal use," Aereo added. "Innovations in technology over time, from digital signals to Digital Video Recorders ("DVRs"), have made access to television easier and better for consumers. Aereo provides technology that enables consumers to use their cloud DVR and their remote antenna to record and watch the broadcast television signal to which they are entitled anywhere they are, whether on a phone, a tablet, a television or a laptop."

Aereo serves a single market, New York City. The company charges $12 per month. For that price, users receive NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, the CW, plus twenty or so other local channels. Users can record shows, and don't need to purchase or install any equipment.

That's the problem, according to the suits. Aereo claims that it has installed a number of tiny antennas in racks in the New York City area, providing its customers their own set of "rabbit ears" antennas. The key, according to the company, is that Aereo's approach makes certain there is an antenna for every single subscriber at any given time. The video is then digitally processed and set back to servers, where it is then streamed to users via the Internet, including tablets, phones, and PCs.

The broadcasters, however, said in their suit that digitizing the video and sending it to subscribers was rebroadcasting the video, something that U.S. law prohibits without permission. The ABC suit called Aereo's microantenna strategy "an artifice," and that an individual antenna does not make the transmission private.

"Simply put, Aereo is an unauthorized Internet delivery service that is receiving, converting, and retransmitting broadcast signals to its subscribers for a fee," the Fox suit said.

In concept, Aereo and the suit against it are reminiscent of Ivi.tv, a service that promised to rebroadcast local TV broadcasts over the Internet for a small fee. But the company was dogpiled by a suit by major broadcasters, who successfully argued that the company's actions violated federal law. Ivi.tv was ordered shut down in Feb. 2011. FilmOn also tried a similar approach.

One difference? Aereo is backed by Barry Diller's IAC.

The National Association of Broadcasters, which is not formally named as a plaintiff, hosted a copy of the suit on its Web site.

"NAB strongly supports today's legal action against Aereo. Copyright and TV signal protections promote a robust local broadcasting system that serves tens of millions of Americans every day with high quality news, entertainment, sports and emergency weather information," Dennis Wharton, NAB's executive vice president of communications said in a statement. "A plaintiffs' win in this case will ensure the continued availability of this programming to the viewing public."

Editor's Note: This story was updated at 5:43 PM PT with details of the ABC suit as well as a response from Aereo. Aereo was formerly called Bamboom.

About the Author

Mark Hachman Mark joined ExtremeTech in 2001 as the news editor, after rival CMP/United Media decided at the time that online news did not make sense in the new millennium.
Mark stumbled into his career after discovering that writing the great American novel did not pay a monthly salary, and that his other possible career choice, physics, require... See Full Bio

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